New Delhi-based logistics aggregator Shiprocket has received USD 27 million in a new funding round led by March Capital and existing investor Tribe Capital. DST Global’s managing partner Rahul Mehta and Bertelsmann India Investments also participated in this round.
The company last raised USD 13 million in May 2020 from Tribe and Innoven. The fresh funding round brings the total capital raised by Shiprocket to USD 53 million. Its other backers include Nirvana Venture Partners, Beenext, and 500 Startups.
This funding round, which is a mix of primary and secondary share sale, has given an exit to some of its early investors with returns ranging between six-seven times, the company said in a statement.
The logistics startup plans to use the new capital to strengthen the product, increase engineering team, and global expansion.
Shiprocket’s parent company Bigfoot Retail Solution Pvt. Ltd, was founded by Gautam Kapoor and Saahil Goel in 2011. It used to offer an e-commerce solution called KartRocket to help small and medium sellers set up their brands online. Later, the company re-branded KartRocket as ShipRocket360.
In 2017, Bigfoot Retail Solutions launched Shiprocket, a technology-led logistics solutions company, and roped in Vishesh Khurana as its third co-founder. The platform, on behalf of physical shop owners, online marketplaces, social sellers, and high-volume shippers negotiates fees with last-mile delivery companies, as well as provides live tracking of their shipments. It works with 17 logistics companies including FedEx, BlueDart, Delhivery, Shadowfax, Gati, among others.
Logistics players like Shiprocket have seen a rapid spike in demand as small merchants and direct-to-consumer brands, adopt online channels to function due to the pandemic that has disrupted offline sales.
“With the growth in D2C as a share of overall e-commerce, there is a growing opportunity to enable the full stack of services in the post-purchase journey of the D2C consumer,” Saahil Goel, co-founder, Shiprocket, said in a statement.
Over the last 12 months, Shiprocket claims its shipment volumes have almost tripled, while the number of merchants on the platform has grown to 100,000. The startup, which turned profitable in FY19, currently claims to processes 4 million shipments monthly and have annualized revenue run rate of USD 50-60 million.
“We were able to get a lot more long-tail and younger merchants during Covid and our seller acquisition just went through the roof. We found all kinds of merchants getting online, whether it was small shops, D2C brands, or larger brands exploring their hands at going D2C,” he added.